“In life, your attitude determines your altitude,” a wise person once said. I agree. I’ve observed many people with bad attitudes over the years. Without exception, they didn’t amount to much until they fixed their attitude problem.

A bad attitude manifests in multiple forms: Arrogance. Dishonesty. A sense of entitlement. A thirst for power. Laziness. Pessimism and negativity. Cheerlessness. Jealousy. Defeatism. Disrespect for other people’s rights, choices, and property.

After three years of destructive Covid policies—from lockdowns to mask mandates—some are finding it challenging to get their engines going again. That’s perfectly understandable, given what many have endured including illness and death among friends and family to serious financial losses. Let’s not trivialize any of that but at the same time, let’s note that a bad attitude is a hindrance to recovery and progress. This short 1905 poem titled Thinking by Walter Wintle offers a few keen observations:

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out in the world we find
It begins with a fellow’s will;
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are;

You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.

Americans have been body-slammed before but we’ve always bounced back. The agony of the pandemic is Sunday school compared to the hardships of Valley Forge, the crucible of the Civil War, the injustices of slavery and Jim Crow, the heartbreak of the Great Depression, or the existential threat of World War II.